MOBILE, Alabama - The Mobile Sports Hall of Fame inducted its Class of 2013 on Tuesday night at the Battle House Hotel. As might be expected, the acceptance speeches of the new members of the sports shrine were heavy with humility and ladened with thank-yous - with family, coaches and teammates on the receiving end most often.

The color commentary of this sports event was provided by some of the very people who often were thanked later in the program, perhaps despite what they'd just said.

The Mobile Sports Hall of Fame's 25th class included former Cleveland Browns All-Pro Hanford Dixon, former Alabama track standout and McGill-Toolen coach Angelo Harris, former Alabama State football star and Blount coach Ben Harris, former South Alabama baseball star and NL All-Star Jon Lieber, former Williamson basketball star and NBA player Pete Myers and former Vigor football star and NFL running back Rickey Young.

View full sizeMembers of the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame attending the induction banquet on Tuesday, May 21, 2013, mingle at the Battle House Hotel. (Mark Inabinett/minabinett@al.com)

All attended except Myers, whose NBA duties kept him from coming. Myers is an assistant coach for the Golden State Warriors. His son Gene accepted the honor on his father's behalf.

Dixon could have spoken for all of the inductees who followed when he started the first acceptance speech by saying, "I didn't make it on my own. There were so many people who helped me along the way," and ended it with: "I've won a lot of awards, but none of them mean as much to me as this one here. I'm truly, truly humbled because this is where it all started for me, right here in Mobile, Alabama."

Those were the common themes sounded from the podium. The other folks who got to address the gathering had their anecdotes lined up, though.

Bobby Collins was the Southern Miss football coach when he got Dixon to join the Golden Eagles from Theodore High School.

View full sizeJon Lieber makes his acceptance speech during the induction banquet for the Class of 2013 at the Battle House Hotel on Tuesday, May 21, 2013. (Mark Inabinett/minabinett@al.com)

"When he came to Southern Miss, we didn't allow much trash talking," Collins said on Tuesday night. "In fact, we didn't allow any - until he came along. And trash talk, he could. But the thing about it was, he could back it up, so we didn't say anything."

Collins said Dixon used his mouth as a way to bait receivers, setting up interceptions. Dixon admitted he was cocky, but he expected to start as a freshman - and did.

Robert Brazile, already a Mobile Sports Hall of Famer, related his lifelong friendship with Young, all the way back to elementary school when everybody else in the class had two crayons - red and blue - while Young had 36 colors.

Brazile also related how he hurt his shoulder trying to meet curfew when he saw Jackson State football coach Robert "Bob" Hill's car coming. With Young and future Pro Football Hall of Famer Walter Payton at the time, Brazile said they'd lived up to their promise never to tell the coach how he hurt his shoulder because "Ricky and me and Walter were like brothers."

Brazile wasn't Young's only Hall of Fame friend in the crowd of 200 or so on Tuesday night. Mike Fuller, an old teammate from the San Diego Chargers was there, as was Scott Hunter, who might not have known he was one of Young's inspirations in football. Young said he and his grandmother lived so close to the Vigor's home field, they could sit on their front porch and listen to Hunter's exploits as the Wolves' quarterback before Young became a Vigor star himself.

Steve Kittrell, also a member of the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame and Lieber's coach at South Alabama, related how Lieber would butt heads with pitching coach Ronnie Powell until he was almost fighting mad, then Powell would tell the pitcher to "take that to the mound."

Lieber said that saw him through a 14-year Major League career.

"(Powell) pushed me to the limit," Lieber said, "and started a fire in my stomach."

Tony Hairston recounted how Ben Harris would take players to church on Sunday in the coach's truck, dubbed the Green Hornet, and "if you didn't have a tie, he gave you a tie."

"He was like a father figure to a lot of guys who didn't have one," he said.

"Just by doing something positive," Ben Harris said, "going to church, going out to eat after church - I had no idea it would end up winning us state championships."

Antonio Lang, also a Mobile Sports Hall of Fame member, related how Myers had shown him that he could go to the highest level of basketball even though he grew up in "a football state."

View full sizeRobert Brazile enters the ballroom followed by Johnny Brown as members of the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame are introduced at the induction banquet for the Class of 2013 at the Battle House Hotel on Tuesday, May 21, 2013. (Mark Inabinett/minabinett@al.com)

"He was the guy that I saw that made it," Lang said. "And he made me believe that I could make it. ... He's been a role model for me. He was the guy, when I looked at it, who gave me the motivation, who gave me the idea that I could make it in the NBA.

"The thing about Pete - whatever a coach needed, he provided it. He made a tremendous career out of it. ... All the things you needed to win in the NBA, he embodied it."

Myers' son told the story of his first meeting with Michael Jordan, whom his father replaced in the Chicago Bulls' lineup. He said Jordan related that early in his career "the reason I worked so hard in practice was because your dad brought it in practice every day."

Angelo Harris' high school coach Pete Banks remembered seeing the new Hall of Famer, an aspiring football player at McGill, run in his PE class, sizing him up, then telling him: "You're not going to be a football player. You're going to be a miler."

Harris came back to McGill to follow in Banks' footsteps as a teacher and a coach. Banks said Harris was a Hall of Fame teacher, too. "He had a lot of good students, and they all loved him," Banks said. "That's the best thing I can say about Harris."

Angelo Harris joined the MSHOF exactly one year after he was diagnosed with lymphoma and confided he wasn't sure then if he'd still be around today. He used the Alabama song "Angels Among Us" as a way of identifying his support group.

Angelo Harris coached cross country and track and field at McGill-Toolen for 30 years, winning 13 state championships and producing 76 all-state runners.

But before his years of success as a coach, Harris was a running star himself. At a time when the mile was track's glamor event, Harris was the state champ in the mile in 1966, and he set the SEC 1-mile outdoor record while running for Alabama in 1968.

Ben Harris went from football and basketball stardom at Toulminville High School to being a record-setting quarterback for Alabama State from 1975 through 1978.

Like Angelo Harris, Ben Harris' athletic accomplishments then were overshadowed by his coaching achievements. Taking over a Blount football program in 1988 that had won 11 games in the previous five years, Harris went on a 10-season tear with the Leopards, compiling a 100-30 record and winning state championships in 1990, 1992, 1996 and 1997.

Before Lieber won 131 games in 14 seasons in the big leagues, he played two seasons of baseball at South Alabama. The Jaguars compiled an 88-33 record over the 1991 and 1992 campaigns, and Lieber led USA's pitchers in innings, victories, strikeouts and ERA in both those seasons.

Lieber's best MLB season came in 2001 with the Chicago Cubs, when he had a 20-6 record and was a National League All-Star.

Dixon was a three-sport standout at Theodore High School before he was a four-year starter at Southern Miss, where The Sporting News tabbed him as an All-American cornerback after his 1980 senior season. Dixon was a member of USM football's Team of the Century

The Cleveland Browns selected Dixon with the 22nd pick of the 1981 NFL Draft, and he spent his entire nine-year NFL career with the Browns. He was a Pro Bowl selection in 1986, 1987 and 1988.

Myers led Williamson High School to a 28-3 record during his senior season of 1980-81. Then he played for Jack Robertson at Faulkner State before finishing his collegiate career at Arkansas-Little Rock. He helped put the Trojans on the basketball map by leading 14th-seeded UALR to a 90-83 upset of third-seeded Notre Dame in the first round of the 1986 NCAA basketball tournament.

Myers played for seven teams during a nine-year NBA career. The 6-foot-6 swingman's best season came in the 1993-94 campaign, when the Bulls ran up a 55-27 record with Myers in the starting five.

View full sizeRickey Young enters the ballroom at the Battle House Hotel after being introduced at the induction banquet for the Class of 2013 on Tuesday, May 21, 2013. (Mark Inabinett/minabinett@al.com)

Young played at Vigor High School before joining a Jackson State. Young went on to a nine-season NFL career - three with the San Diego Chargers and six with the Minnesota Vikings - where he became a noted pass-catcher out of the backfield. His 88 receptions led the NFL in 1978 and set a record for catches by a running back.

Of all the NFL players born in Alabama, only three have caught more passes and only four have rushed for more yards than Young.

The Mobile Sports Hall of Fame presented the Kearney Windham/Evonik Scholarships to Will Killion of McGill-Toolen and Kristen Lee of Davidson.